Skip to main content
Dessert

Coffee' Cake

A sweet cake made with sugar, butter, eggs, coffee, raisins, currants, spices, and leavening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Coffee' Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Mix and bake

  1. Stir in the cold coffee, raisins, currants, cream of tartar, baking soda, mace, and any additional spices.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  3. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and adds richness and tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and, creamed with butter, helps create a light crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acid that works with baking soda to aid leavening and stabilise the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg in fully before the next keeps the butter and sugar emulsified, so the batter stays smooth and holds air for an even crumb. Adding them all at once can cause curdling and a denser cake.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, coffee, raisin, currant, cream):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, coffee, raisin, currant, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More coffee cake recipes

German 56Filling 7Apple 4Chocolate 3Dutch 3 See all 347 →

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipes